Literature talk:Schleicher's fable
Proto-Wakanic is the ancestor of Verapamil, Diltiazem and Wakanese. It's part of the "CW complex" spoken in eastern Cuadhlabh.
Phonology
Proto-Wakanic is reconstructed with the following consonants:
- The voiceless stops *p (labial), *t (dental), *c (palatal), *k (velar) and *kʷ (labialized velar). The Verapamil reflexes of these sounds are the fricatives f, s, hy, h and hw respectively. In Diltiazem, these sounds surface as voiceless aspirated stops, except for *c which becomes t̂ /θ/.
- The voiced stops *b (labial), *d (dental), *j́ (palatal), *g (velar) and *gʷ (labialized velar), which become the stops p, t, ty, c and qu respectively in Verapamil. In Diltiazem, these sounds surface as voiced stops, except for *j́ which becomes ĥ /x/.
- The nasals *m and *n, and the approximants *j, *l and *r, which are retained in Verapamil and Diltiazem, except for *j which becomes s in Diltiazem.
- *w and *ŋ, which become v and w in Verapamil respectively (but /ŋ/ is retained before *k and *g in Verapamil)
These sounds aren't as certainly known:
- *ń, which becomes ny in Verapamil and z in Diltiazem.
- *ź, which becomes zh in Verapamil and ŝ /ʃ/ in Diltiazem.
Proto-Wakanic, like most modern Wakanic languages, had five vowels: *a, *e, *i, *o, *u; which can be short or long. Long vowels are written with a macron. There were also two diphthongs: *ai and *au. The Verapamil reflex of *au is ai and the Diltiazem reflex is aŭ /aw/.
Proto-Wakanic allowed consonant clusters of up to two consonants before a vowel.
Grammar
Proto-Wakanic morphosyntax was somewhat unusual by CW standards:
- unmarked OVS word order (not attested in any modern CW language),
- topic-comment syntax (as in Proctorian),
- no pro-drop,
- generally isolating (modern CW languages are either agglutinating, like Verapamil, or fusional, like Clofabosin).
However, Proto-Wakanic also had some grammatical features common in CW languages such as:
- head-final syntax (e.g. postpositions, complementizers after the verb, adjectives and relative clauses before the noun)
- tense agreement, and
- four tenses: present, past, timeless and future, with progressive and perfect aspects.
Nouns
Proto-Wakanic nouns had four cases: nominative, dative, ablative and locative, but no grammatical gender or number.
| *tallo - pole | ||
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | *tallo | |
| Dative | *tallōn | |
| Locative | *tallod | |
| Ablative | *tallōl | |
| *ēruki - pot | ||
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | *ēruki | |
| Dative | *ērukīn | |
| Locative | *ērukid | |
| Ablative | *ērukīl | |